


Operation Body Switcheroo

by crayondall



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayondall/pseuds/crayondall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had never seen his body looking so awkward and that was saying something.  He had a solid eighteen years of experience knowing exactly how awkward his body could be, but Derek made it look especially awkward.</p>
<p>Or the one where witches cause Stiles and Derek to switch bodies</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Body Switcheroo

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of these characters, I just really like the show.  
> This was written on a whim today, so no one else has read it and the mistakes are all mine.  
> And I realize this is totally cheesy, but I like cheesy.  
> Also, this is only my second attempt, so it might stink, eh, it was kind of fun to write

Stiles had never seen his body looking so awkward and that was saying something. He had a solid eighteen years of experience knowing exactly how awkward his body could be, bending at unnatural angles or flailing in every direction. None of that even compared to the look his body had now that he wasn’t the one wearing it. Yet seeing his body—which was freaky enough, he wasn’t looking in a mirror. He was looking at his freaking body, how he wished it was just some out of body, astral projection deal, but no he was standing up in Derek’s body and Derek was over there in his. This was the last time he messed with a coven of witches, no matter what territory they try and steal. He was done. Done, done. Never happening again. Not ever. Once he gets his body back that is, because his face does not do scowling and standing rigidly well. It just looks so… awkward.

In theory, Stiles believes that switching bodies with someone could have been completely awesome. Had he and Scott switched? That would have been completely awesome. They could have had people going for weeks. The mayhem they could have caused. That isn’t what happened though, because Scott was patrolling with Allison, Lydia and Jackson, and then Issac, Erica and Boyd. So, of course he was stuck with Derek, again. He was pretty sure that Derek explained why he couldn’t just go with Scott and Allison before, something about not leaving Scott with two humans… Allison was way too badass to be considered as a mere human, but no one listened to him. Scott and Allison might have had ulterior motives. Screw that, they definitely had ulterior motives for not wanting him around. So, now instead of having switched bodies with his best friend when he wanders into the campsite of some angry witches that immediately cast a spell and ran away, he was standing there as Derek. Hooray. 

****  
Derek was not any happier than Stiles. Not only should his face be making that many different expressions, there was no way there were that many muscles in it, he’d trained his face well over the year to hold a blankly judgmental glare and here Stiles was disrupting that perfection. And then there was the truly awful part, he couldn’t see or smell or hear things normally. He’d lost his “were-powers” as Stiles would call them with his body and it was extremely disorienting.

“Dude…” Derek was so accustomed to hearing Stiles whining voice, but coming from his body it sounded gruff, exacerbated, but no, still whiny. He didn’t whine and his body was betraying him now that Stiles was in control of it. Stiles at least had the decency of looking shocked by the sound that came out of his mouth. “What the hell?”

“You mean other than the fact that we’re in each other’s bodies?” Derek said as flatly as he could. Stiles’ voice had too much natural inflection, deadpanning didn’t work well. 

“We’re in each other’s bodies, no shit. I wouldn’t have figured that one out on my own. What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to find a way to switch back.” Derek attempted to contort Stiles’ features into a look of burning condescension. Judging by the way Stiles started laughing Derek assumed he failed. 

“Okayyyy.” Stiles drew the word out as if waiting for Derek to catch on to something. “But what about until then? I have school tomorrow and my dad’s going to notice. Let alone the rest of the pack.”

“We’re going to tell the rest of the pack.” 

“You sure? We could just pretend to be each other?” Stiles flailed Derek’s arms around briefly before pausing. “No… you’re right, there’s no way you could convince anyone. And having Lydia on our side for researching will be useful. Oh! And I can just research thing while you’re at school.” Derek watched his body fist pump the air. It was so, so wrong.

Derek wished he could growl and flash his eyes at Stiles. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen for a while yet.

“We should probably call them.” Derek said after a few moments.

****

After a few disorienting phone calls and a short drive, Derek and Stiles pulled up to the vet’s office where the others waited to meet them.

Stiles leaped from the passenger’s seat. Even though he was in control of Derek’s body, Derek refused to hand over the keys to his Camaro. Stiles felt it a huge injustice, but despite his protests, Derek only attempted to glower at him again. The longer Stiles watched Derek in his body the more comical it became. Distressing, yes, but also hilarious. 

“Scott, Scott, Scott!” Stiles ran over to nuzzle his best friend. “This is all your fault.” He pulled away to glare at Scott and was met by Scott’s disbelieving face. Right. Stiles isn’t Stiles right now, he needs to remember that. He turned to see everyone watching as he clung onto Scott. “Right… I’m in Derek’s body and so it looks like Derek is hugging someone. Which would be impossible given how emotionally constipated he is.”

“Look at Stilinski, he finally got in someone’s pants.” Jackson muttered.

Stiles glared at Jackson and by the way he cowered, he’s pretty sure he’d made Derek’s eyes flash. Finally, people responded to his glares with fear. If only he could do that from his own body, because he could get used to that type of power, even if all the super sense were making him slightly disoriented. Imagine a world in which everyone listened to his brilliant ideas instead of running off to get chewed up and spit out. For a moment he contemplated that power and stared dreamily into space.

“Alright, now that look is just weird. Derek’s face should not look that happy. It creeps me out.” This time Erica was on the receiving end of glares from both Derek and Stiles. 

“Let’s go talk to Deaton and get this over with.” Derek announced rather than let his betas continue. Judging by the way that the heads quirked to the side and lips drew in, Stiles could tell that his friends were taking Derek trying too take charge from inside Stiles about as well as when Stiles tried to take charge himself. As in not at all, apparently there was something about his face that didn’t scream authority. As much as he might object to that, Stiles couldn’t help agreeing that listening to orders issue from his body was not the most convincing thing. He’d have to work on that if… WHEN he got his body back.

Deaton only shook his head as Stiles and Derek explained what happened. Stiles held out hope that the vet would have a quick fix for their problem, but the longer they spoke, the more discouraged he became until Deaton finally broke his reverie. 

“I’ve heard of something like this happening once or twice and can look into it.” He spoke in such soothing monotones; Stiles couldn’t help but be reassured momentarily. “Though it doesn’t look promising unless we can find the witches again and ask them to undo their spell.”

“We have to find them again!? What if they make it worse?? What if we’re stuck like this forever?” Stiles started blabbering and couldn’t help himself as words continued to spew from his mouth. 

Deaton quirked a smile at him. “Stiles, we’ll do what we can.”

“What if it isn’t enough?”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to get used to the sound of Derek’s voice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say so many words at once, if ever.”

Stiles stopped openmouthed and indignantly. Apparently even if Derek’s body, people didn’t concern themselves with what he said.

****

Derek could have happily gone his entire life without a conversation like the one that unfolded at the Stilinski home as they tried to explain to the Sheriff what had happened. 

“My son somehow managed to switch bodies with you.” The Sheriff sounded exasperated as he tried to make sense of the two young men in front of him. “Only you Stiles, only you.” He shook his head and pressed his fingers into his forehead.   
If Derek wasn’t preoccupied with his own situation, he’d feel even worse for the Sheriff. He still remembered the awkward conversation about the existence of werewolves and how he’d been required to take on his alpha form to convince the Sheriff and Mrs. McCall that it wasn’t just a steroids or something causing Scott and the others to sprout extra facial hair. 

“So, should I even bother asking what the two of you are going to so about this?” The Sheriff sounded tired as he questioned what would happen next. 

“Well, I’m going to do research and try and find us a way out of this situation and I guess Derek’s… going to go to school and pretend to be me?” Stiles looked over to Derek hopefully. Derek should have seen this coming; of course he was going to have to pretend to be Stiles until they figured out how to fix this. 

Which is how Derek found himself driving Stiles’ beat up old jeep to Beacon Hills High School the next morning. High school was a nightmare that ended years ago for him and yet here he was going back to those same old walls. He’d been back to the school enough times to know that nothing had changed and with Stiles’ very detailed directions he knew there was no way he could get lost or accidentally not find the right classrooms. There was even a handy map. It was color-coded. That and his betas meant there was no way he wouldn’t be suffering through a day as Stiles.

Taking a deep breath he pulled open the door to the stupid jeep, they’d all decided it was better not to draw extra attention by having Derek drive his own car. While Derek was less than pleased by this development, he couldn’t argue against its validity. He couldn’t have people looking for reasons to think that he wasn’t Stiles. Everyone had already made it pretty apparent that he was too sullen to be Stiles and didn’t talk or flail nearly enough. There wasn’t much he could do about that though, he tried. He and Stiles had extensive lessons the previous night on how to flail appropriately before they both gave up realizing it was a hopeless case and that sleeping would be a much better use of their time. That was the other problem in Derek’s mind, instead of his own bed at his loft, he’d been stuck sharing a room with Stiles. The floor was not his idea of a good place to sleep a night, though it could have been worse. 

Derek shook himself from his reflections on the night before and pushed through the school’s doors heading for the starred locker on his map. Before he could even get there, Scott accosted him.

“Stiles! Is that you?” Scott gave him a puppy face. What was with the kid and his ability to look fluffy and, Derek cringed at the thought, adorable? It was wrong. “Cringing. So, no.” Scott deflated. “Well then Derek, we need to get you to History. It’s with Boyd and Issac, so at least it isn’t too bad.”

Derek grunted in response. Stiles had gone over all of this the night before. So after a quick trip to Stiles’ locker, Scott brought Derek over to Issac and Boyd for them to take over. It disconcerted Derek that he couldn’t smell any of them. He also didn’t like the way he was being babysat, especially since he doubted anyone was hovering over Stiles. What he would give to be himself again. He might even be nice to his betas and use full sentences on occasion.

Any feelings of generosity disappeared as soon as Derek entered into the history classroom and the only thing on the agenda was a test. It was decided; the world hated him. Not only was he stuck in Stiles’ body; he was forced to do Stiles’ work for him. The kid better be doing ridiculous amounts of research right now.

Issac cast a glance in Derek’s direction. “He didn’t mention the test, did he?”

Derek took a deep breath and shook his head. He wanted to punch something.

“At least it doesn’t matter for you how it goes.” Boyd observed.

As true as that was, Derek didn’t want to deal with Stiles, if he completely ruined Stiles’ GPA. Derek only hoped it was something he’d covered in one of his history classes or that it was multiple choice. He could manage that. Probably.

As luck would have it, for both Stiles and Derek, the test was on late 19th and early 20th century American history and focused on the more environmental aspects. Derek made a point of visiting all of the National Parks and exploring nature after the fire, so he knew all about John Muir and the Sierra Club and Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party. It was a lucky break after all of the chaos of the past few days. He wouldn’t bet on doing better than Stiles would have, but at least he didn’t fail. 

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Coach Finstock yelled at him for not interrupting the economics class enough. Derek hadn’t even thought it was possible for someone to get mad at you for not giving them reason to be mad, but he’d observed the coach enough times at lacrosse games to know he was insane. Lunch was a bit awkward, because Scott kept forgetting he wasn’t Stiles and Erica just kept laughing at everything he said or did. Oh, the payback there would be once he was himself again.

The best part of Derek’s day was unquestionably lacrosse practice afterwards. He got to hit people and throw things at them. While he lost most of his grace and athletic ability, he quickly discovered that Stiles’ body was nowhere near as uncoordinated as Stiles would have it seem. With him in control, there was much less spastic movement and he could tell by the look of surprise on Finstock’s face that Stiles had never played as well as Derek did. Derek let a smug look cross his face. 

And that smug look was quickly knocked off as Jackson crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. He hated that kid and wondered once again why he’d ever agreed to give him the bite. It had caused him nothing but trouble, first the kanima and now just an obnoxiously cocky jackass. He seriously needed to reevaluate his life.

“Nice run Bilinski, but back to the bench for a bit.” Derek begrudgingly followed the coach’s instructions, limping his way over to the bench to sit for a bit. The whole extended pain and soreness was not something that he enjoyed. It was one thing to be stabbed by a pole or slashed by claws, but another to be this sore from just being knocked to the ground. 

****

Stiles spent his morning examining every part of Derek’s body. Claws, check. Pointy teeth, double check. Strange facial hair and glowing eyes, yeah, he had those too. There might have a few other bits of exploration, but that was between him and whatever Gods may or may not be out there. He just hoped he wouldn’t think about it too much around the others, there was no way he’d ever be able to deny that his affections had switched away from Lydia a while ago if he did.

After his what makes a werewolf a werewolf session, which he’d always wanted to do with Scott, but for some bizarre reason Scott hadn’t enjoyed the prodding or endless questions, Stiles headed over towards Derek’s loft. For all of their forethought, they’d forgotten to bring some of Derek’s clothes over and there was no reason to squeeze Derek’s body into Stiles’ clothes. He wasn’t trying to manipulate Danny and didn’t want any of his clothes stretched out. Besides, any excuse to drive the Camaro. It wasn’t like Derek would let that happen once he got back from school.

Although Stiles had been to Derek’s before for pack meetings, being there alone was odd. It always struck him how clean and bright the place was, especially after the train station. Stiles would have set up a secret camp for Derek in a cave or abandoned warehouse, it wasn’t like they hadn’t explored every one of those in town anyways, but no. A clean apartment won out for some reason. It still took away from the dark, broody image Derek had going on in Stiles’ mind, but you can’t have everything. 

Once Stiles was dressed and had some extra clothing, just in case. Maybe he shouldn’t take any, it was like planning to stay like this and Stiles didn’t want that. He much preferred ogling Derek’s body from a distance rather than inhabiting it. But there was gas money to think about? Besides the number of times that Derek had shown up bloody in need of bandages necessitated having a little of Derek’s clothing around. It wasn’t like he’d cuddle up with it or anything. He didn’t normally have werewolf senses, so his hyper-awareness of Derek’s scent would disappear once they were switched back. 

“Focus Stiles.” Stiles shook his head and headed back to the car so he could head over to Deaton’s and work on researching with him. There was no way Derek would let him off the hook if he didn’t at least manage to get some research done. Especially since he’d remembered his test about five minutes after Derek left that morning. That probably hadn’t gone well. He’d beg for extra-credit later, he already had an essay on the popularization of the teddy bear ready. 

Research went… not well. By the time school and lacrosse practice were out, Stiles trudged his way through books on water witches, moon magic, and even something on making the best pixie stew, which is just wrong, but there was yet to be anything on body switching. It was exhausting and Stiles just wanted to curl up and absorb the next few books by osmosis. Was that a werewolf power?

The next time he looked up, it was to watch himself enter into the vet’s office. He watched as Derek hesitated before the gate before remembering that as a human he could just open the mountain ash gate himself. Stiles watched the conflicted expressions that played across his face as Derek opened the gate and approached him. 

“Any luck?” Derek grunted out. He sounded exhausted. Stiles’ heart went out to him, because if his body was affecting Derek anywhere near as much as Derek’s was affecting him, Derek would be dealing not only with high school, but also a humanity that that he’d never had to contemplate wearing. 

“Sorry dude, I’ve learned about witch migratory patterns, which might help us locate them though. But as for spells that we could do ourselves, I don’t have anything.” Stiles sighed, he’d hoped to have something better to tell Derek and it is clear from Derek’s expression and carriage that he’d also hoped for something more. “We’ll keep looking though. Maybe Allison has had better luck looking through the Argent archives?” Stiles didn’t really hold out much hope for that, they were looking for a cure for their problem, not a way to eliminate the witches permanently.

“Let’s go back to your place.” Derek said after a moment. “Maybe you’ll be able to dig something up on the computer that isn’t in the books.”

****

Derek lay on Stiles’ bed as Stiles typed away on the computer. He tossed a beanbag up and down not knowing what else to do with himself. He’d contemplated doing Stiles’ homework earlier, but decided that it would be an injustice to take a learning experience away from Stiles, especially since he was the one suffering through the school days.

It had been nearly a week now. And while Derek was slowly getting used to being in Stiles’ body, it wasn’t comfortable. As much as he might have imagined being up close and personal with Stiles, counting the moles on his necks and arms. He’d done that several times now, even playing connect the dots with a pen when he realized that he was only getting in the way. Derek hadn’t felt so useless since he buried Laura. 

He tossed the beanbag again.

“Can you stop that? The noise is distracting me and normally it would be fine, but I just can’t get used to this super hearing.” Stiles turned to glare at him and Derek only felt jealousy that Stiles had his hearing. He wasn’t even reacting to watching his body glare at him anymore. It unnerved him that his body seemed less and less his by the day.

“Fine. Sure. I’ll go over to Deaton’s and see if he has anything.” Derek stood up and walked out of the room. Leaving the house he automatically grabbed the keys to the Jeep. It took him leaving to driveway to realize that he wasn’t even trying to take his car anymore. He’d done that earlier in the week and been pulled over by one of the deputies that recognized Stiles and wanted to chat about his “new” car. Since then, Derek always took the Jeep. He was even getting used to the stuttering starts and shaky acceleration of the thing. If he didn’t get his Camaro back soon, he worried he might talking to the dumb Jeep with affection. It took all his restraint to stop himself from hitting his head against the steering wheel repeatedly.

When he pulled up to the vet’s office, he ran into Lydia bringing in Prada. She looked over at him, glancing quickly up and down before she spoke to him.

“Derek.” He wondered how she knew it was him and it must have shown in his expression, so she continued. “You’re dressed to well to be Stiles, if you must know.” Apparently sticking to the solid t-shirts and plain jeans were an improvement on superhero tees in Lydia’s mind. If Derek felt generous, he might share that insight with Stiles later, but he doubted he’d want to tell Stiles anything that might cause him to be more attractive to Lydia. 

Scott was waiting for them when they got inside, taking Prada away from Lydia for her checkup and leaving Derek sitting alone to wait for Deaton. Deaton came in a short while later and Derek could tell almost immediately that the vet had nothing new to tell him.

“I’m sorry Derek, I’ve been reaching out, but so far everything has come up empty. I’ll keep looking, but things are not looking very good.” His voice was calming, but even that didn’t disguise the tiredness of the vet. 

“Thank you Deaton.” Derek sighed out. It wasn’t the answer he was hoping for, but he knew everyone was working as hard as they could. Even Jackson had been seen looking for anything helpful on the computers and Issac, Boyd, and Erica were constantly out hunting for the witches.

“You’re welcome to look through my books again, in case Stiles missed something the first few times.” With nothing else to do, Derek found himself following Deaton into the back room to look through the vet’s library again.

Derek dug through book after book. Every few pages he found tiny slips of paper full of notations from Stiles. It quickly because obvious that the   
search was futile, Stiles had read everything and found nothing. Laying down his head on the desk beside the books, Derek drifted off to sleep. 

****

Stiles wasn’t having any better luck back on his laptop and eventually became distracted… He decided that a bit of personal time might be the best solution to his inability to focus and find anything. He picked up his phone to dial Scott forgetting that his best friend would still be at work. He’d been hoping to shoot some zombie Nazis together, because he was desperately missing his friends. At first, missing school had been awesome. Who actually wanted to be yelled at by Finstock on a regular basis for just breathing or in Janice’s case that one time, not breathing enough. But Stiles quickly realized that all perks came with the downside of not really seeing his friends, because everyone was contributing to Operation Body Switcheroo whenever they didn’t have school. It meant a very lonely week for Stiles.

Stiles decided then that the best solution was to go over to the vet’s and see Scott. He might not get any work done, but he was sure he’d go insane if he stayed cooped up inside his house looking at the same crap articles again and again.

When Stiles pulled up to the vet’s office, he was met by Lydia coming from her appointment for Prada. 

“This codependence thing is a bit ridiculous. I realize you’re both in love with each other, but you’d think you’d want space, considering you’re living in each others’ bodies.”

“Derek’s here?” Stiles hadn’t been anticipating that, he’d kind of been hoping to avoid Derek for a bit. Looking at his own body walking around gave him the heebie-jeebies. He didn’t like it. And Lydia clearly had no idea what she was talking about. He was a strong, independent young man and Derek wasn’t in love with him. He just liked making sure Stiles didn’t find a way to break his body, because werewolf healing powers or not, Stiles had already tripped down the stairs two or three times, still not used to the added girth of his borrowed body.

“You weren’t suffering from separation anxiety?” Lydia mocked.

“I was looking for Scott. You know, big brown eyes and floppy hair. He’s a werewolf. And my best friend.” Stiles went so far as to mime how tall Scott was.

“He’s on shift for another few hours.”

“I know, I just figured I could keep him company for a bit.” Stiles hesitated before adding, “I miss him.”

A quick flash of emotion crossed Lydia’s face showing that she was actually trying to understand what Stiles was going through. With a sad smile, she patted his shoulder and walked to her car.

Being pitied by Lydia was not at the top of his list of things he wanted and it really wasn’t any better than her constant scorn, but he’d evaluate his life later. For now, he just wanted to see Scott.

Entering into the vet, he was greeted by Scott. They looked at each other hesitantly. As much as they’d been best friends forever, they still hadn’t figured out how to deal with Stiles being in Derek’s body. It was just too weird.

“I’d been hoping you’d be free to kill some digital zombies or something until I remembered you were at work.” Stiles started.

“Dude, that would be awesome. I wish I could get off, but Deaton has us booked all afternoon.” Scott frowned at him, Stiles could read him well, knowing that Scott wanted Stiles back to being Stiles almost as much as he loved Allison. It was pretty serious business. He’d even been putting his newfound study skills to good use, trying to find a way to put Stiles and Derek to rights. So far, nothing.

****

Two weeks later and still nothing, Stiles was still Derek and Derek was still Stiles. Derek had gotten to the point that he was doing Stiles’ homework, because he actually needed the review for all of the tests and papers he was being forced to do at school.

Derek was hard at work when Stiles slammed a sheet of paper down in front of him one afternoon.

Ways to Break a Curse  
1\. Not speaking for seven years (I don’t really want to try this one, except as a last resort. Can you imagine me not talking for that long?)  
2\. Finding a fairy godmother (Would probably be as evil as witches with our luck)  
3\. Killing each other to open our bodies up as vessels for our essences to return to (Another one I have no interest in actually testing)  
4\. Wishbone from a turkey and making a wish  
5\. Mixing blood and pouring it over the spot where we were switched  
6\. True love’s kiss (Which, true love, really?)

“You’re really reaching for straws, aren’t you?” Derek looked up after reading through the list. “I guess we could try a few of these, we can definitely get a wishbone and try doing some weird blood oath, as long as we research it and make sure things won’t get any worse. And I think you’re right about fairies, they just seem too dangerous.” He didn’t even want to touch the last item on the list; otherwise he might have to admit how long he’d been fantasizing about tracing the moles on Stiles’ neck. Especially once it isn’t his neck anymore.

“I kind of figured you’d say something like that.” Stiles remarked as he pulled a wishbone from his back pocket. Holding it out to Derek, they both wrapped their pinkies around the opposite sides. There was a moment when their fingers touched and it felt electric to Derek, but Stiles didn’t seem to react at all.

“Alright, on three. Don’t forget to make the wish.” 

The two stared at each other as they counted down together. “Three. Two. One.” 

SNAP.

The wishbone split perfectly down the middle.

Derek squeezed his eyes shut, wishing both of them back into their original bodies.

When he opened his eyes again, he was met with his own steady stare. Nothing. He hadn’t really believed it would worked, but he’d still hoped.

“Well, I guess it’s time for a fieldtrip back to the woods.” Stiles said dejectedly.

****

Derek drove the Jeep out into the woods as Stiles stared absently out the window. He hadn’t really thought the stupid wishbone would work, but he was getting desperate. He wanted his life back. Even though all of his friends knew who was who, it didn’t make it any easier, not really. No one understood the internal struggles that came along with not being in your own body, especially when the body you were trapped in was one you fantasized about when you were asleep and waking up being the object of your imagination was just so very wrong. So wrong. On so many levels.

They pulled up the clearing that they’d previously found the witches. Glancing at each other for reassurance, or what Stiles took to be reassurance, the two exited the car.

Derek pulled his hunting knife out of his belt and quickly slashed a cut on his hand before handing it over to Stiles. Stiles winced as he watched the blade breaking the skin on his hand. He couldn’t physically feel the pain, yet, but it still unnerved him to watch blood drip from his hand.

Shaking, he reached to take the blade from Derek. Derek must have sensed how badly Stiles was shaking, because instead of handing him the blade, he took his hand. Rubbing circles firmly into Stiles’ hand to reassure him, Derek looked steadily into Stiles’ eyes. Then the eye contact broke and Derek sliced through Stiles’ palm.

“Shit dude. Little warning next time.” Derek only quirked an eyebrow at him.

Clasping their bleeding hands together, they dripped the blood onto the ground where they’d been cursed as Stiles recited the spell he’d stumbled across in some fairy tale. It was sad, Stiles was resorting to fairy tale cures, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

Finishing the chant, Stiles closed his eyes and wished to return to his body harder than he’d ever wished for anything. Harder even than when his mother was dying, because he had that to experience to draw on now. He hoped his mother was watching over him now and that maybe she would help him fix this.

When he opened his eyes to his own face, he plopped on the ground in despair. Putting his newly healed up to his face, he began to feel the salty sting of tears forming.

“Dammit.”

****

Derek crouched down in front of Stiles. He felt awful for him, it was bad enough that he was going through this, but for some reason it seemed even more unfair for Stiles. Stiles, who was being robbed of his senior year and best friends. 

Derek dragged Stiles’ hands away from his face and replaced them with his own, softly caressing the corners of his jaw, hoping the boy would find   
some reassurance in knowing that he was not alone.

“Hey, there’s still one more thing on the list that doesn’t require you to stop talking for the next dozen years.” Derek tried to joke, but the strangled sound of his voice meant the comment fell flat even to his ears. “Maybe Lydia’ll come around, it’s for a good cause, right?”

Stiles just stared at him blankly for a moment before he started laughing.

“Even if I could convince Lydia to kiss me, which would be easier in your body than it ever would have been in mine, it won’t do any good. I haven’t been in love with her for a few years now.” Derek’s breath hitched as he looked down at Stiles and continued to absently rub his fingers over his face.

Before Derek knew what was happening, Stiles lunged forward and planted his lips on Derek. It was quite possibly the most awkward experience of Derek’s life. He was kissing himself and falling backwards and then he was falling forwards and tumbling to the ground. By the time he was sitting upright again, he found himself looking down at Stiles, who laid sprawled on the ground with a huge grin plastered on his face and fist raised pumping the air.

“So, I guess the last item on the list worked?” Derek remarked at the boy collapsed in front of him.

“Yeah, I guess so. Or those witches just have a wicked sense of humor.”

“I’m going to go with the list.” Derek said before reaching out and tracing the moles on Stiles’ neck and pulling him into another kiss. 

****

Lydia looked at him once before greeting him. “Welcome back, Stiles.”

Scott and the others stared at her in disbelief, before looking back over at Stiles for confirmation.

Stiles grinned widely. “It’s the clothes.”


End file.
